An audience expresses appreciation for a good performance by the strength and nature of its applause.
The thunder of applause at the start often turns quite suddenly into synchronized clapping, and this synchronization
can disappear and reappear several times during the applause.
The phenomenon is an expression of social self-organization that provides an example on a human scale of
the synchronization processes that occur in numerous natural systems, ranging from
flashing Asian fireflies
to oscillating chemical reactions.